A 鈥榶es鈥� vote for the transfer of Manchester council鈥檚 Langley estate to Bowlee Park Housing Association has been marred by allegations of gerrymandering
The claim, by Defend Council Housing, came after 90 per cent of residents voted in favour of transferring ownership of some 3,200 homes. A total of 2,134 tenants voted, with 1,929 voting 鈥榶es鈥� and 204 voting against.

But the anti-transfer campaign group claims non-voters鈥� details were passed on to the council so it could carry out follow-up visits.

Lack of money meant that door鈥搕o-door visits, designed to promote voting by everyone who had the right to do so, were suspended, DCH allege.

It claims the council 鈥渞eleased the details of tenants who had not exercised their right to vote鈥�.

Mark Weeks, a spokesman for Defend Council Housing, said: 鈥淚t is inconceivable that any organisation which has a policy on pursuing stock transfer would not use this information to further its cause and run rough-shod over tenants鈥� wishes.鈥�

But Manchester Council housing director Steve Rumbelow countered: 鈥淲e passed on a list of non-voters to an independent agency, First Call, to ensure that tenants knew they were still able to vote and to encourage them to vote.鈥�

He denied there was any encouragement 鈥渢o vote one way or the other鈥�, adding that the ballot result showed tenants鈥� endorsement of the proposals.

Meanwhile, tenants who voted 鈥榶es鈥� to transfer on Monday have helped save the jobs of housing department staff at Knowsley council.

The ballot result backed the transfer of 17,000 homes to Knowsley Housing Trust by 74 to 26 per cent, on a turnout of only 59 per cent.

Housing director John McHale said: 鈥淲e were facing a very serious financial situation and had looked at 拢3.8m worth of cuts, which would inevitably have included redundancies. Now those jobs are secure.鈥�

Knowsley is working with neighbouring St Helens council and a number of Merseyside housing associations in a consortium that will try to ensure that sufficient trained construction workers are on hand to cope with the improvements promised by the new landlords.

RSLs Riverside, CDS, Maritime, Arena and Liverpool Housing Trust were due to meet the two councils today (Thursday) to thrash out the details. St Helens tenants voted for transfer to Helena Housing six weeks ago by 17,462 votes to 12,418 on a 71.3 per cent turnout.

Both transfers are due to take effect next summer.

Source

Housing Today